January 12: About 500 octroi agents withdrew their three-day strike today after a successful round of talks with Assistant Municipal Commissioner Ajay Mehta. Mayor Nandu Satam also stated that the action to be taken against the striking agents would be withdrawn. The municipal corporation was contemplating cancelling or forfeiting the licenses of the agents.Recently, the BMC cancelled the licenses of three agents, while the license of 12 others are yet to be renewed. Satam said he withdrew this action after he was told that the cancelling of licenses of three agents had not been done `through proper channels'. Satam has now asked for names of the employees who signed on the papers cancelling the agents' licenses although they did not have the authority to do so.According to Satam, he received a call from Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and Thane police commissioner Bhujangrao Mohite complaining of traffic problems caused by the strike. Mehta was immediately sent to the site and a meeting held in hisoffice this evening, where the decision to call off the strike was taken.Satam however asserted that there was no going back on the issue of charging 10 times the octroi duty from defaulters. ``We are ready for talks on other issues,'' he said.Meanwhile, nearly 2,000 trucks continued to be parked by the road near the Thane, Mulund and Dahisar check nakas. Thane traffic police officials estimated it would take a day or two to clear the backlog.
